Saturday, February 20, 2010

What Is The Deal With The Current Cultural Obsession With Vampires?

I’m trying to figure out exactly what it is about Vampires right now. They’re everywhere. Every time I turn around, there’s a new show or movie about them.

They have long since come to my house. My wife and her sister have read all the Twilight novels. I’ve even seen the movies. I guess the best I can say is I didn’t not like them if that makes sense. I rolled my eyes a lot during the dialogue but the story wasn’t too bad. I think they seriously overplayed the “lovesick teen girl” angle though. I also have trouble comprehending why a 109 year old vampire would want to spend his immortality as a junior in high school.

I’m probably not aware of all of the movie and TV offerings dealing with vampires. I couldn’t keep track of them if I wanted to. I know there’s a show called “The Vampire Diaries” and an HBO series called “True Blood”. I tried to watch True Blood, but I can’t get into it. Like most HBO series, it seems to be based on the following premise:

1) Calculate how much gratuitous cussing and soft porn that can fit into an hour long program

2) Create some characters to cuss and sleep with each other

3) Develop some form of plot

I think the plot is optional. The shows seem to have no shortage of viewership though. I’ve never really been able to get into an HBO series. That includes “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City”. I watched most of the 1st season of The Sopranos. I might have watched 3 episodes of Sex and the City. They’re just not my thing. Obviously, they’re somebody’s thing because they did very well.

About the cussing: I have little problem with cussing. I was a sailor, remember? I lose patience with TV and movies when it seems like the cussing serves no purpose. Kind of like in Transformers 2, when the mom was running around campus, stoned, repeating the S word over and over again. It added NOTHING to the plot or the storyline. That scene could be completely removed from the movie and nobody would miss it. It’s like the producers said “You know what would be funny? A middle age woman running around a college campus, stoned, repeating the S word over and over again. America would LOVE it!” But we have evidence of how out of touch Hollywood is with the rest of America.

Back to Vampires. Vampires are even showing up in Christian fiction. Albert Mohler tackled the issue on his radio show last year.

One thing I know for sure: most of the people obsessed with vampire movies and merchandise would be absolutely terrified if vampires were real. At least, in the sense of the vampires having the powers they do in fiction. There are people walking the earth who claim to be vampires. There is some sort of religion they practice. They drink each others blood. Some get into evil things. I have no awareness of any of them actually being immortal or having any kind of “super powers”. But there are people who claim to be vampires. I’ve seen a few episodes of Forensic Files involving them.

From the Christian fiction angle, Tim Challies created the idea for what he calls “the ultimate Christian novel: Cassidy, Amish Vampiress of the Tribulation. This combines the three hottest subjects in Christian fiction: Amish, vampires, and end-times all into one book.